Hey I caught up with this thread. Just wanted to say I really identify with what you are saying here. I didn't bring up Generalplan Ost at the top of this thread etc. to minimize the Shoah, I lost relatives there and would not be here today if my great grandfather hadn't hopped on a boat for Ellis Island from the Ukraine, but because I do think people do not appreciate the true genocidal scale of what the Nazi's were fighting for in the East.

That said I do think it is important to remember that Jews (and the Roma) did get it proportionally worse even than the Slavs in the Nazi's grand post war plans. This doesn't mean we shouldn't educate more people in thw west about the countless war crimes against Soviet civilians and POW's the Germans committed, but it's important to keep a full perspective.

Though to be totally fair I wouldn't say mainstream history over-centralizes Jewish suffering nearly as much these days as it once did. Wages of Destruction, The Third Reich at War, Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov, and even pure military history like When Titans Clashed by David Glantz for example all discuss other crimes extensively going on mainstream history books I've read. I don't think you could read a mainstream history of the Eastern Front or just crimes committed in that region (e.g. Bloodlands) and come away with the impression that Jews were the only ones who suffered, these days the impression is likely just a product of the limited time teachers have to cover the war in classes, and the fact that there are a lot more western WW2 movies that deal with the Shoah than the general Eastern Front.